


It's Just a Drift Thing

by Raine_Wynd



Series: Battle Cries [5]
Category: Highlander: The Series, Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Drift Side Effects, Gen, Hansen Family Feels, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-06 22:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3151412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raine_Wynd/pseuds/Raine_Wynd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jocelyn asked for "Something in the Battle Cries verse pre-Tattoos & Scars, showing the Herc and Chuck 'curling around their partners like cats' after a fight. I need cuddly immortal Rangers." Revised from the Tumblr posting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Just a Drift Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jocelyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jocelyn/gifts).



Taking down the kaiju had taken the Hansens an agonizing eight hours, their longest neural handshake to date. After two years of fighting together, Herc had learned that his son tended to need time to cuddle as a means of unwinding himself from their shared Drift; it was the only time Chuck allowed himself to be simply a son in need. Herc hadn’t expected it; Scott had always found someone else to help, someone who could remind him that he was himself, not part of a jaeger pilot team. Herc relished the time with his son; outside of it, Chuck had made it clear he didn’t need that kind of physical affection. Where Chuck got the notion that being hugged by his father in public was a bad thing, Herc wasn’t sure, but he suspected it had more to do with the sword Herc tended to wear strapped to his back, hidden by magic underneath the old Lucky Seven vest he wore – but Chuck was acutely aware it was there, since he’d seen Herc put it on every morning.

Now, Chuck waited impatiently for the Shatterdome medical staff to clear them before they headed back to their quarters. Herc could feel his son’s impatience like splinters under his skin, and it made him brusque in his answers. Thankfully, they’d been deployed out of the Sydney Shatterdome, so the staff knew them; knew what to look for that might be different.

“You’re ghosting,” Dr. Lavrova pronounced, sounding concerned, and ignored Chuck’s look of ‘no, duh, doc.’ “I’ll let Marshal Dylan know you’ll need to be off duty for the next three days so you can separate yourselves from each other. Please do not attempt to use the ghost drift you’re currently experiencing to experiment with telepathy, showing off anything you deem amazing to non-PPDC personnel, or anything of the sort. Get some sleep, eat regular meals, and drink plenty of water. Closeness, as you two both know by now, helps as well. Take some painkillers for any bruising, etc., etc. You know the drill by now and I can tell I’m boring you, Chuck, so you’re free to go.”

“Finally,” Chuck said with sigh. Herc thanked the doctor before joining his son in the hallway. A few passing crew congratulated them on their latest kill, but for the most part, they were left alone to make their way to their quarters. Once the door was shut, each man took showers; the bathroom was configured so that they had individual stalls to do so. Herc pulled on a pair of sleep boxers; Chuck put on the cut-off sweatpants he preferred.

The beds had been bolted to the floor in such a fashion that moving them was more problematic than it was worth, so Herc just rolled out a sleeping bag onto the floor in the space in front of the TV, grabbed the TV remote and his pillow, and laid down while he waited for his son to join him. Chuck grabbed his pillow for form’s sake, but he abandoned it as soon as he set it down. Herc stole it shamelessly as he reached for Chuck, who tucked immediately into his embrace.

Chuck shuddered out a sigh. In here, with no reporters around, no one but his father, he could vent the fear he’d used to fuel their fight. “Thought for sure we’d have to swim all the way to China just to get that bastard to water we could fight in,” he told Herc now. “I swear that bastard knew we could only use the plasma cannons on him underwater. Whose bright idea was it to not make Striker’s chest cannons waterproof?”

“Don’t know, son,” Herc said as he turned on the TV. “You gonna figure out a way?”

“Maybe,” Chuck replied, snuggling in shamelessly. “Shove over some, will ya?”

Herc grumbled, but moved the half-inch he knew his son wanted. Keeping in mind that the default channel in the Shatterdome was the Pacific News Network, which would run analysis of the latest fight, Herc tuned the TV station to the ‘dome’s vast library of movies, choosing one at random from their shared wish list. Predictably, Chuck protested the choice.

“Shut up; you’re the one who put it on the list, not me,” Herc said, certain from their ghost drift that Chuck was protesting because he hated admitting he had a love for anime. “Now be still; you’re squirming too much and hitting my bruises.”

“You’re healed; I’m not,” Chuck said dryly. “You don’t have bruises anymore.”

“I know where they were,” Herc pointed out as the opening credits rolled. Outsiders often heard them exchange words like this and mistook it for hate and discord; Herc only worried when his son aimed for the heart, and Chuck knew the quieter his father got, the more likely he was truly pissed off. This was just fussing, delivered in the way Chuck preferred, to make up for what he saw as an embarrassing side effect – just a drift thing, not meant for the public, though there had been instances already when they hadn’t had this luxury of privacy – like their first fight, when all eyes were on Chuck, and Herc had simply gathered up his son and held on until Chuck stopped squirming long enough to realize it made the drift hangover less.

Herc didn’t mind that he and his son curled up like cats post-Drift; it was either that or go find a willing partner who would. After two years, Chuck didn’t mind either, but he hated the insinuations some made that their relationship was somehow unnatural and sinful as a result, as if needing to touch one’s parent in this manner was a dirty, shameful thing. No one outside of the jaeger program understood that after melding minds, skin-to-skin contact was the only thing that seemed to help with the discordant sensation of not quite being in a singular human body. Herc wouldn’t trade this moment for the world. Another day, another fight, Chuck might decide he wanted to get laid, as Herc had sometimes chosen, especially now that he was eighteen and more willing to consider opportunities. For now, though, being as this close was everything, and Herc let the voices of the film wash over him until he felt, more than saw, his son fall asleep. Only then did he let himself relax his guard and follow his son into slumber.


End file.
